Another Man's Wife Read online

  Another Man’s Wife

  Dallas Schulze

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Prologue

  It was the first time he’d stood up as best man at a wedding, but Gage Walker was pretty clear on what his duties were. He was supposed to hand Rick the ring at the appropriate moment, make a toast to the newlyweds at the reception and act as escort to the maid of honor. So far, he hadn’t done too badly. He hadn’t dropped the ring, his speech had drawn the requisite number of chuckles and the maid of honor attached herself to her own fiancée at the earliest possible moment, relieving Gage of the responsibility of entertaining her.

  So far, so good. He’d discharged his duties to his best friend, had done everything he was supposed to do. There was only one problem, one thing not working out the way it should.

  The best man was not supposed to lust after the bride.

  He wasn’t supposed to have this gut-level urge to pull her into his arms and see if her mouth tasted as warm and lush as it looked. To slide his fingers into her hair, pull it free of the pins that held it in a soft twist at the back of her head and see it tumble over his hands like pale gold strands of silk. Gage didn’t need to consult a pocket copy of Miss Manners to know that he had no business feeling the way he did when he looked at his best friend’s brand-new wife.

  “Rick told us that you build bridges, Gage. That sounds so exciting.”

  Gage dragged his gaze away from the bride and looked at the woman who’d spoken. The peach formal she wore told him that she was one of the bridesmaids, which meant that he must have been introduced to her.

  “I have a little help,” he said dryly, trying to remember her name. Mary or Marie, he thought. Or was this the one named Clair? They were sisters and looked too much alike for his jet-lagged brain to sort them out.

  “Rick said you were flying in this morning from Austria, just for the wedding.” She sighed. “I’ve always wanted to see Austria. All those lovely pastries. Of course, I’d have to be careful not to eat too many of them,” she added, smoothing her hand over her waist in a way that drew attention to her slim figure.

  At another time, Gage might have been inclined to respond to the blatant invitation in her eyes. The way she was looking at him made it clear that her hunger ran to something with fewer calories and more meat than a strudel. He had no objection to a woman making a play for him. Especially one as attractive as Clair or Mary or whoever she was. But he wasn’t in the mood today.

  “Actually I was in Australia, not Austria,” he told her.

  She laughed softly. “Geography never was my best subject.”

  Gage was willing to bet that she’d excelled in topics that weren’t graded in most high schools. His eyes drifted past her to where Rick and his bride stood talking to an elderly couple on the other side of the room.

  “Have you known Kelsey long?” he asked.

  “Since high school. We met during cheerleader tryouts. I made the team and she didn’t, but we became friends anyway.” She glanced over her shoulder, following his gaze to the newlyweds. “They look good together, don’t they? Both so fair.”

  Gage murmured his agreement. They did make a handsome couple. Rick, tall and blond, looking uncharacteristically sophisticated in his black tux, and Kelsey, her slender body curved against his, her eyes adoring as she looked up at him.

  Gage looked away, telling himself that the pang he felt was indigestion. He sure as hell wasn’t jealous of his best friend. Envious, maybe, of the happiness Rick had found, but not jealous.

  “So you just got in this morning?” Clair—he was almost positive this one was Clair—asked.

  “Late last night, actually.” He reached for his champagne, considered his exhaustion and picked up his water glass instead. More than one glass of champagne in his current jet-lagged condition and he could find himself observing the rest of the reception from under the table.

  “Then you didn’t even get to meet Kelsey until after the wedding,” Clair said.

  “That’s right.” He’d been too concerned about handing the ring to Rick without dropping it to really look at the bride during the ceremony. It was only when they arrived at the reception and Rick introduced him to his new wife that Gage had felt the ground shift under his feet.

  “It’s so nice to finally meet you, Gage. Rick has told me all about you.” Kelsey smiled up at him, her eyes warm and welcoming.

  “Don’t believe everything he says. He’s always been jealous of me.” Gage reached out to take the hand she offered.

  At the first contact, he felt a jolt of electricity run up his arm. From the startled way her eyes jerked to his, he knew she’d felt it, too. Awareness, pure and simple. Only there was nothing simple about it at all. But Gage wasn’t thinking about that in those first seconds. He was only thinking that she had the most beautiful eyes he’d ever seen in his life. Her eyes were gray. Not blue gray, but a clear, crystalline shade of gray that seemed to see right into his soul.

  He had the odd sensation of destiny hovering over his shoulder, of fate grinning at him. His smile faded and his hand tightened over hers. Kelsey stared at him, hardly seeming to breathe. Time stood still.

  “Did I do good or what?” Rick’s voice shattered the moment.

  Gage released Kelsey’s hand as if it had suddenly caught fire. It had to be too many hours on a plane and too little sleep, he told himself as he responded to his friend’s question with the assurance that he’d done very good indeed. Exhaustion could do funny things to a man’s mind, even make him think of things like fate and destiny when he met his best friend’s bride of less than an hour.

  The problem was, those thoughts stayed with him as the reception wore on. He found himself watching Kelsey, the way the light caught in her hair, the way her face lit up when she smiled. And she smiled a lot. Why shouldn’t she? She was a bride, right? Brides were supposed to be happy.

  And best men were supposed to be happy that the bride was happy. Gage took a swallow of water and let his eyes drift to the newlyweds again. He was happy. He was glad Rick had found the woman of his dreams. That odd moment of awareness had been a momentary aberration, that’s all—a combination of jet lag and exhaustion. Hell, his body still thought he was in Australia. It was no wonder he was hallucinating.

  “Excuse me,” he said to Clair, “I haven’t danced with the bride yet.”

  Rick and Kelsey were talking to Kelsey’s parents when Gage approached. He exchanged pleasantries with the older couple before turning to Rick.

  “Does the best man get to dance with the bride?”

  “I don’t know. Depends on whether or not the bride minds having her toes stepped on.” Rick looked down at his wife, his light blue eyes laughing. “What do you think, sweetheart? Are you willing to take a chance?”

  “I think I can take the risk, considering Gage came so far just to make sure you didn’t lose the ring,” Kelsey said lightly. But Gage saw the hint of wariness in her eyes and knew she was thinking of that flash of awareness that had shot between them.

  “Ignore him,” Gage told her, nodding at Rick. “Like I said before, he’s always been jealous of me. Just because he dances like Fred Flintstone—”

  “Yeah, right. And I suppose you’re Fred Astaire,” Rick jeered as Kelsey stepped toward Gage.

  “If the top hat fit
s,” Gage said with a grin.

  Kelsey was chuckling as they walked away. But her laughter faded when the music shifted from a light rock-and-roll tune to a slow, dreamy ballad just as they reached the floor. She hesitated a moment, and Gage half expected her to say that she wanted to wait this one out, but she turned toward him, a polite smile fixed firmly in place. His own hesitation was imperceptible before he took her into his arms.

  Big mistake. That was the first thought that ran through his head as he felt her slide into his arms. This was not a good idea. He felt that same jolt of electricity he’d felt before, that shock of awareness that ran over his skin, as if he’d just grabbed hold of a live wire.

  They swayed to the music, the full skirt of her wedding dress brushing against his legs as they moved together. Neither of them spoke. She fit in his arms as if made to be there, Gage thought reluctantly. He tried to think of something to say to break the silence between them, something light and amusing to dissipate the tension. Unfortunately the only thing he could think of was that he wished he’d met Kelsey months ago, before she and Rick fell in love.

  Don’t be a jerk, he told himself. Even if he had met her first, there was no reason to think things would have turned out any differently. She loved Rick and he loved her. Besides, Rick was the marrying, settle-down-with-a-family type, which was more than Gage could say, or even wanted to say, about himself. He’d known for a long time that hearth-and-home wasn’t for him. He didn’t want—could never have—that kind of life. No white picket fences and diapers lay in his future.

  “Rick and I have been friends a long time,” he said, breaking the tense silence.

  Kelsey tilted her head back to look up at him, her gray eyes questioning. “Since high school. He told me how close you are.”

  “Rick?” Gage arched one dark brow in question. “I bet he didn’t put it quite that way. Not unless he was drunk at the time.” He knew Rick too well to believe that he’d say anything even remotely sentimental.

  Kelsey looked annoyed, caught the laughter in his blue eyes and smiled reluctantly. “He may not have phrased it exactly like that,” she admitted primly. “But I knew what he meant.”

  “Yeah, Rick isn’t much for pretty speeches,” Gage said, grinning at the understatement. He refused to notice the soft curve of her waist beneath his hand or the light floral scent that drifted from her pale gold hair.

  “Not everyone is blessed with a glib tongue, Gage.” Her pointed look made it clear whom she was talking about.

  He gave her a guileless smile. “Gee, thanks. I didn’t think you’d noticed.”

  She laughed and he felt her relax in his hold. Whatever subtle tension had been between them dissipated, washed away on shared laughter. By the time Gage returned her to Rick, he’d convinced himself that the attraction he’d felt had been nothing more than temporary insanity, a momentary envy that his friend had found something he’d never risk trying for.

  An hour later, when the bride and groom made their departure, Gage waved and cheered with the rest of the guests. He ignored the vague feeling of loss, telling himself it was just that Rick’s marriage was bound to mean changes in their friendship.

  The end of an era, he thought, pouring himself a glass of champagne. This vague melancholy had nothing to do with any fancy he might have had about destiny or fate hovering over his shoulder. And it certainly had nothing to do with how right his best friend’s wife had felt in his arms.

  Gage lifted the champagne flute and offered a silent toast to the newlyweds. They had their whole lives in front of them, and he wished them well.

  Chapter 1

  Three Years Later

  Gage pulled the rental car up to the curb and shut off the engine. But he stayed where he was for a moment, staring out the windshield at the gray drizzle that was falling. Too light for rain, too heavy for mist, the omnipresent dampness seemed to cut right through clothing and chill all the way to the bone.

  Confronted with low temperatures and persistent moisture, California natives commented that at least they didn’t have to worry about drought this year. Tourists who’d flown west to escape snow and cold stared out their motel windows and hoped for a glimpse of the fabled sunshine, drought be damned.

  Gage wasn’t thinking about either the ever-present threat of drought or of ruined vacations. With a grim twinge of humor, he thought that the weather suited his mood—bleak and gray. He didn’t want to be here. He wanted to be six thousand miles away, fighting off mosquitoes, flies and insects he couldn’t put a name to, slogging through muck and mud, sweaty and filthy and complaining about the heat.

  He’d rather be doing damned near anything than sitting in this sardine can of a car, trying not to think about what lay up that curving brick walkway, behind the closed door of the unexceptional house at its end.

  Cursing his own cowardice, he shoved open the car door and levered his long legs out from behind the steering wheel. Once out, he slammed the door shut and then stood staring across the roof of the car at the house in question. It looked just the way it always did. The way it had last time he’d been here, four months ago, just before Thanksgiving.

  If anything, it looked better. The lawn was brilliant green from the winter rains, and a smattering of pansies brightened the flower beds that lined the walkway. The landscaping set off the one-story structure, which was painted white with blue gray trim. It was a picture-postcard image of the American dream.

  Only this particular dream had been shattered.

  Gage glanced up at the sky and then looked back at the house. He didn’t want to go in but he could hardly stand in the rain forever. Hunching his shoulders beneath his light denim jacket, he forced himself to walk around the car. The chill he felt had nothing to do with the weather and everything to do with the reason he was here.

  Rick was dead.

  Walking slowly up the pathway, he remembered the hours he and Rick had spent laying the bricks, arguing over how they should be positioned. Kelsey had sat on the lawn, holding the baby and laughing at the two of them. When Rick had picked up the hose and threatened to squirt her with it, she’d held the baby up, pretending to hide behind his tiny body. Rick had swooped down on her, wresting the laughing infant from her, and Gage had exacted revenge for the two of them by turning the hose on her, drenching her thoroughly while Rick and little Daniel laughed.

  That had been just last summer. Those hot July days had been some of the best Gage could remember.

  Gone. All gone. The desolate words kept rhythm with the sound of his boot heels on the porch steps. All the laughter, all the friendship, forever gone. When Rick had married Kelsey, Gage had braced himself to lose a friend. Instead, he’d gained one. Things had shifted, changed, but the three of them had created new ties. It was as if his friendship with Rick had simply widened to encompass Kelsey, as if the three of them had known each other forever. He sometimes found it hard to remember a time when Kelsey hadn’t been part of his life. Rick’s wife, baby Daniel’s mother, his friend.

  Gage closed his eyes, flickering images of half a hundred memories playing through his mind. If one of them was going to die young, it should have been him. He was the one who spent his time crawling around on I-beams, checking to make sure the bridges he’d helped to design were being put together properly. He was the one who spent ten months out of every year in parts of the world where law was sometimes more a vague concept than a solid reality.

  If one of them had to die, it shouldn’t have been Rick, with his nine-to-five job and his family. He’d had so much to live for. Everything had been so right in his life. Kelsey and Rick had come damned close to making him think that happy endings were a possibility.

  Only fate had stepped in and proved that happy endings were the province of books and movies, not real life.

  Gage realized that he’d been standing in front of the door, staring at it as if it were an alien artifact, something he’d never seen before. He didn’t need help figuring out why
he’d rather stand in the rain than knock on the door he’d helped Rick paint right after he and Kelsey moved in. Once Kelsey opened that door, it would all become real. There’d be no denying the truth.

  Rick was dead. The reality of that lay behind that door. He’d see it in Kelsey’s eyes. Rick was gone.

  Gage forced himself to move forward. Rick was dead whether he knocked on that door or not. His boots sounded loud on the wooden porch. His knock sounded even louder.

  He stood there, damp and chilled, trying to think of what he was going to say to Kelsey when she opened the door. He’d had the long journey from Brazil to try to come up with the right words, but they still eluded him. What did you say to your best friend’s widow?

  He turned away from the door to stare at one of the hanging baskets of flowers that lined the edge of the porch. Kelsey’s handiwork, no doubt. According to Rick, her thumb was so green, he half expected to see the furniture sprout leaves. The baskets were certainly beautiful, he thought, concentrating on the way the solid green of leaves and the bright pinks and oranges of the flowers stood out with harsh brilliance against the drizzly gray sky behind the baskets.

  He heard the door open and he turned, his shoulders braced as if for a fight.

  “Gage.” Kelsey’s voice held no discernible emotion. And the fine mesh of the screen made it difficult to read her expression.

  “Kelsey.” Gage hesitated, all the carefully rehearsed phrases failing him. There simply were no words he could give her.

  They stared at each other in silence for a moment. Without a word, Kelsey pushed open the screen door, and Gage stepped into the small entryway. It had to be his imagination that made the small house feel empty, as if something vital was gone from it.

  “I came as soon as I could,” Gage said as Kelsey shut the door behind him, closing out the dampness. He moved to put his arms around her, realized how wet his jacket was and stopped. But not before he saw Kelsey flinch as if she couldn’t bear to be touched. His brows rose and he started to speak—though he didn’t know what he was going to say—but she spoke before he could, suddenly becoming animated.